My Maddie (Hades Hangmen #8)(38)

I felt my tears slip down my cheek, felt my throat close with fear and dread. This time the sadness was for me. The world thought me brave for overcoming the horrors of my own past. But it was all due to Flame. He had been the one to save me. He was my sword when evil thoughts came to drag me down into the pits of despair. Flame was my protective shield when doubt and feelings of unworthiness began to take root in my heart, spreading like a cancer, countering any happiness I had found—and I had found it in abundance with Flame. More than I deserved.

Flame felt he was the weak one. The one who burdened me. But he was no burden. He was the richest of blessings. He was a solitary light in the smothering darkness. His flames were neither evil nor devil tainted. They were sharp bursts of redemption. Of hope. Flame was light. He was my warmth.

“Maddie?” I flickered my eyes open. Bella was standing at the bottom of the bed. She was chewing on her lip. She was obviously nervous. I quickly wiped my eyes. Bella came rushing to my side and took hold of my hand. It was the soothing touch of a beloved sister. But it was not the hand I craved, the touch I needed to feel, to breathe well again.

“I’ll go get your discharge papers, then we can get you on your way.” I had not even realized the nurse was still in the room. My hands and arms were now clear of wires. We were okay. My baby and I were okay. We had survived.

“Thank you,” I whispered, distractedly. The nurse left the room. I sat up, searching around the space. “Where is he?”

Bella glanced over her shoulder. I followed her gaze to see Rider standing silently in the corner. He was dressed in his doctor’s attire of matching green shirt and pants. Scrubs, he called them.

“I’ve searched the hospital, Madds. I can’t find him,” Rider confessed, disappointment lacing his voice. “We were told he went on business for the club. But we know Flame. He wouldn’t leave you for something that trivial. I called AK, Madds. He’s on it.”

My heart burst. I was not one to let my imagination run away with me. But I knew my husband. I knew the fragility of his heart and soul. The loose control he maintained over his mind. The thread of sanity he tried so hard, each day, to follow. His past was a visitor he could never rid himself of, lurking behind a closed door, relentlessly knocking, just waiting for the handle to turn so he could rush inside and take control of the residence.

The most terrifying thing was that I knew he could never leave me. For days he had remained by my side, unmoving, silent save for the cuts he sliced into his already-scarred flesh. Hospitals lit the ferocious fire he believed lived in his blood. The smells and noises reminded him of being strapped down on a narrow bed, unable to release the flames that tortured his soul as a young man. Yet another time in his life when Flame’s will was withheld from him. His father, his pastor, then the psychiatric hospital he ended up in had never understood him. Never sought to understand what plagued his soul, instead injecting him with drugs that stole his voice, which was crying out so desperately for aid.

No one cared that he was different in the way he thought and felt. Dismissed the notion that he was capable of love and kindness. They failed to discover the hidden path to his heart. Instead, it became overgrown, smothered in blackened thorns and weeds—the manifest horrors of his past. Those horrors flourished until they were all he could see. Until, in his mind, it was all he was. All he could ever be. I felt myself sinking into a pit of despair, into a black hole of misery and wretchedness. Panic and worry cloyed so thick I believed I could feel it swelling the walls of my veins. Suddenly, a fluttering feeling swirled in my stomach, instantly banishing the darkness of taking hold of my heart.

My hands dropped to the rounded bump and I gasped. “Maddie?” Bella questioned, concern lacing her voice.

Rider was by my side in an instant. “Maddie? What is wrong? Are you okay?” His hand took hold of my wrist and he began checking my pulse. I knew it was racing, but not through illness.

The ceiling lights glimmered against the torrent of tears that filled my eyes. My vision became awash with glittering fluorescent stars until I wiped them away. I moved to the side of the bed, legs dangling off the side. I cradled my bump and was instantly rewarded with the fluttering feeling. The word feeling inadequately described the sensation. Our baby was moving. Our baby was moving inside me. Joy flooded my heart and spread like rushing water through my body. A laugh escaped my mouth. “Our baby moved,” I exclaimed, looking up to Bella who had laid her hand on my shoulder in concern. “Our baby… moved. Our baby is moving…”

“Maddie,” Bella whispered affectionately, kissing my head in relief. I closed my eyes and felt our baby moving again under my hands. Every prayer I had ever made was being answered. A veritable miracle under my spread out and earnestly seeking palms. My eyes opened and drifted to the empty chair beside the bed. My mind immediately went to the man who too should be beside me feeling our baby move, sharing in this moment of indescribable joy.

A flash of pain burst in my chest when I imagined the fear that would have sparked in his eyes as I held out my hand for him to take. As I guided his palm over my stomach and watched him witness the embodiment of our love seeking his warmth. A father’s love.

The baby moved again. I took a deep breath and felt my heart fill with realization. The baby moved when I thought of Flame, when I thought of its father. As though the baby already loved him as much as I. As though the baby was asking me to find Flame. To bring him back to us where he was always meant to be. Purpose filled me with the upmost of strength. Strength that would guide me and fuel my bringing Flame back to our side, back from the abyss he was falling into. From the clutches of the demons he believed within him.